On the quotients of mapping class groups of surfaces by the Johnson subgroups

Abstract

AbstractWe study quotients of mapping class groups ${\Gamma _{g,1}}$ of oriented surfaces with one boundary component by the subgroups ${{\cal I}_{g,1}}(k)$ in the Johnson filtrations, and we show that the stable classifying spaces ${\mathbb {Z}} \times B{({\Gamma _\infty }/{{\cal I}_\infty }(k))^ + }$ after plus-construction are infinite loop spaces, fitting into a tower of infinite loop space maps that interpolates between the infinite loop spaces ${\mathbb {Z}} \times B\Gamma _\infty ^ + $ and ${\mathbb {Z}} \times B{({\Gamma _\infty }/{{\cal I}_\infty }(1))^ + } \simeq {\mathbb {Z}} \times B{\rm{Sp}}{({\mathbb {Z}})^ + }$ . We also show that for each level k of the Johnson filtration, the homology of these quotients with suitable systems of twisted coefficients stabilises as the genus of the surface goes to infinity.